Ciaron O’Reilly could come to Melbourne for a week some time in the first three weeks of August if there is enough interest.

In his last three trips to Melbourne he’s spoken to every group I could find and now I’m out of ideas. So if you would like him to speak at your group, or know somewhere he could speak, contact me by leaving a comment.

Ciaron O’Reilly is a Catholic Worker who was part of the Pitstop Ploughshares who were recently acquitted for disarming a US War Plane in Ireland en route to Iraq on the eve of the War.

UPDATE: I’ve already had one positive response. A few more and he’ll be able to come down from Brisbane.

…We feel if everybody in Australia who seriously oppose this war made their opposition visible by holding vigil for an hour each week – at a military base, outside a government building, on their campus or in their community – this would have quite an impact on waking our society from its slumber. A society that is largely sleeping through this war as these young men and women at Enoggera are being prepared for deployment.

In my journey through blogs of acquaintances, and blogs of friends of acquaintances there was the occasional post that stood out. Some I liked and some were infuriating.

Let’s start with one of the good ones:

Blair Cameron at Bacchus Marsh Uniting writes of the congregations taking Luke’s gospel story of the woman anointing Jesus’ feet and replacing the characters with contemporary figures. With more than one congregation, there was more than one set of substitutions.

This can be a powerful way of relating the bible text to today, making bizarre biblical behaviour understandable.

It raises the question: along which lines do you draw the parallels from Jesus’ time to today? For example is a Pharisee the political leader (as one congregation would have it), the business tycoon (according to the other one) or someone else?